


I've Been Waiting for an Hour to Post This Because I Can't Think of a Title so Here

by taylor_tut



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Annoyed Leonard "Bones" McCoy, Gen, Headaches & Migraines, James T. Kirk & Leonard "Bones" McCoy Friendship, Kirk Whump, Protective Leonard "Bones" McCoy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-20
Updated: 2019-09-20
Packaged: 2020-10-24 10:23:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,114
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20704421
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/taylor_tut/pseuds/taylor_tut
Summary: Bones helps Kirk with a migraine. Pretty short and simple. Hope y'all like it, anyway!





	I've Been Waiting for an Hour to Post This Because I Can't Think of a Title so Here

Leonard McCoy, despite his own better judgment and the fact that he would rather die horribly in space than admit it out loud, had a best friend, and that friend was James T. Kirk. He'd made a promise to himself when he'd joined Starfleet—that he'd keep to himself, do his job, and go home with some money in his pocket and maybe even a sense of purpose and a better idea of who he was and who he wanted to be. From the minute he'd zipped up the uniform, he'd vowed that his first and foremost goal was to minimize the number of headaches he endured at the hands of the stupidity of other cadets, and he'd planned to do that by being so prickly and unapproachable that people were afraid of him. 

So how, he had to wonder,had he ended up pounding on the door of the ship's captain's quarters because they'd agreed to get breakfast at a certain time and Jim hadn't shown?

Jim overshared, for starters. One didn't "get to know" Kirk—they absorbed deep, personal details about him from various sources, including Jim himself, and desperately patched them together until they had a sort of working picture of what kind of person he was in their mind. Everyone's was a little different: the Chekov kid thought he was larger than life, worshipped the seat Kirk commanded from, while Nyota had seen him drunk and practically groveling for sex on more than one occasion and no amount of dignified peace treaty announcements he made was going to undo that damage. Jim didn't care what people thought about him because he was good enough to command respect from everyone on the ship, even the few cadets who'd watched him challenge an alien twice his size to a drinking contest and lose his lunch before the other guy was even tipsy.

He told the stories himself, even. Ship gossip was a virulent thing, but Kirk's ability to laugh at himself and to never feel embarrassed made him basically immune to it. 

Because of that tendency, it worried Bones when Kirk was clearly in distress and the first he heard about it was by walking in on him taking pills for a headache rather than flopping down in his chair and regaling the bridge with a detailed account of how he'd gotten such a spectacular hangover. 

“Popping pills, are you?” Bones called, startling Kirk enough that he choked on the cup of coffee he’d been chasing them with. 

“Jesus, Bones,” he coughed. “You scared the shit out of me.”

“Because you’re hiding.” Jim rolled his eyes. 

“It was ibuprofen. Over the counter; got it from the OTC cabinet in the med bay. I can show you the log if you want.” 

“I’m not worried about what it is; I’m worried about why you took it.” Bones studied him for a long moment, taking in the rather convincing cocky stance and peeved look on his face. There were no obvious signs of injury like blood or bruising, but that didn’t mean that they weren’t there. “If you show me where you’re hurt, this will go a lot more smoothly for both of us.”

Jim sighed. “I’m not hurt.”

“I warned you,” Bones challenged, stepping forward with his tricorder in hand and trying to scan him, undeterred by Jim shoving his hands away and arguing. 

“I’m being serious!” Jim whined. “I just have a headache from being on the bridge for the last 36 hours. Thought I’d take something before I went to bed so I could actually have a chance at falling asleep.” 

The tricorder beeped a happy little negative-results trill and Bones had to wonder if, for once, Jim was telling the truth and actually trying to do something for his own self-preservation. Spock had been called away on ambassador duty to meet with a diplomat who detested Starfleet but trusted Vulcans, so for the past several days and for the remainder of the week at least, the ship was down to just one commanding officer. Though Hikaru had been picking up a tremendous amount of slack during the few-and-far-between moments that Kirk left the bridge to eat or sleep or shower, there was a lot to be done. When Bones had told Spock that Kirk wouldn’t know what to do without him, he’d meant it, and now that was more apparent than ever. It was entirely possible, Spock would even say ‘logical,’ that Kirk might have a pretty bad stress headache. 

“Well, you’re lucky the tricorder agrees with you, for now,” Bones caved, “but you’re not getting off that easy. When did this headache start and how bad is it?”

“Yesterday afternoon, but it’s been mild enough that I could ignore it until a few hours ago. Now it hurts just to look at the monitors, and everyone up there is so noisy.” Bones frowned. 

“Sounds more like a migraine than a headache.” 

“Tell me about it.”

“Well, if you knew that, why didn’t you come to medical and get something stronger? Ibuprofen ain’t gonna touch a migraine once you’ve ignored it this long.”

At that, Kirk looked a little uncertain. “I didn’t really want anyone to know that I’m feeling the pressure a little,” he admitted. 

“I’ve said it before, Jim, that stupid pride of yours—”

“—Yeah, yeah; it’s gonna get me killed. I know. I’m more afraid that if anyone thinks I’m not up for it, then they’re gonna start ‘helping,’ and before I know it, Keenser is going to be trying to pilot the ship for me while the rest of the crew accidentally plunge us into intergalactic war while I’m napping.” 

That, Bones had to admit, was fair, too. There was a reason he steered clear of the bridge whenever he could. Too many eager cooks in the kitchen, all sharing the same brain cell and Nyota had it 99% of the time. 

He scanned Jim with the tricorder once more to be safe and sighed when it came up once more with nothing out of the ordinary. 

“You’re sure you’re not hiding some kind of mysterious alien illness from me, then?” he verified. Kirk laughed, but it sounded tired.

“Pretty sure.” 

While Bones prided himself on not being as easy for Jim to shake off as anyone else in his life who’d ever showed concern for his well-being, for this moment, he decided that he was happy with that answer for now. 

“Well,” he finally caved, “I guess I’d better let you get to bed, then.” Jim looked grateful but not suspiciously so. 

“Thanks, Bones. I’ll talk to you later.” 

Bones worked for the eight hours that Kirk spent sleeping and then two and a half after that. Just because they weren’t exploring right now, that didn’t mean that there was any shortage of work to be done, and no matter what any of the other medical officers said, Bones felt the need to have a hand in all of it. 

After having a meal in the dining hall, this time alone and loving every second of it, he decided to shower and relax for a little while before letting his curiosity get the better of him and going to the bridge to check on things. He’d been constantly checking his comm the entire time he was working, half expecting a call that would inform him that Kirk had collapsed or something. That was usually the way it worked, after all—Bones would notice that something was wrong, point it out, and Kirk would deny it, only to be dragged unconscious to the med bay a few hours later. He was grateful for the silence. Perhaps Kirk had been right and it WAS just a headache from the stress.

That thought, nor the lull of sleep after a long shift, weren’t enough to satisfy him, apparently, as he made his way to the bridge. The doors opened and he looked around for the captain, who was nowhere in sight. 

“Doctor McCoy,” Uhura greeted formally. She wasn’t the biggest fan of Bones, mostly because she always took Spock’s side in every one of their numerous arguments, but she was never anything less than professional, which made her okay in his books. “How’s Kirk?” 

Bones frowned. “How the hell should I know?” he asked a little too aggressively, already feeling the irritation of worry settling in. 

She paused. “I… we just assumed that he went to see you.”

“No, should he have? Why isn’t he here?” 

She ushered him over to speak more privately, something else that Bones liked about her. Once they were close enough to use hushed tones, he could tell that she was nervous, even if she’d never want to show it. 

“I mean, he showed up for alpha shift looking like death warmed over, snapped at everyone who asked if he was okay, then stumbled off the bridge after two hours muttering something about a headache. I thought he’d have the sense to—”

“I’m gonna stop you there,” Bones interjected. 

“Right. My mistake.”

“Must be in his room. I’m going to check on him.”

Uhura followed without a word, as her presence was being not offered but rather given, not that Bones would have fought her on it, anyway. Kirk liked her and she was quiet and level-headed. If he ended up needing a second pair of hands on deck to take care of Jim, she was the person he’d want. 

Bones knocked on the door merely as a formality before entering an override code when Jim predictably didn’t answer. 

It was dark in his room and Jim moaned in pain as light from the hallway spilled in behind them, so Bones shut the door. Jim was lying face down on the bed, his eyes buried deeply in a pillow and still wearing his uniform, even down to his shoes. 

“Jim,” Bones called roughly. “It’s me. Can you hear me?”

He stirred but didn’t look up from his pillow. 

“Bones?” he asked, his voice muffled by the fabric. 

“And Lieutenant Uhura,” he supplied as he walked quietly to sit on the edge of the bed, already searching his bag for his tricorder. “What the hell happened to you?”

Jim sighed out a shaky laugh. “Worst headache ever,” he admitted. 

“This ain’t a headache,” Bones argued. “A headache is something you fix with a cup of coffee and a nap. This is…” he took a steadying breath. “Have you vomited at all?” 

Jim shook his head—a good sign, Bones noted with relief, that his neck didn’t appear to be stiff or painful. 

“I’m nauseous, but no.”

Bones started to wave the tricorder over his prone body. “Any weakness? Numbness? Pain anywhere other than your head?” 

“No. Leave me alone,” he whined. When the tricorder beeped, Bones was honestly surprised. 

“Well, you don’t have a fever or a concussion.” That was a relief, he thought. He rarely got so lucky. “God damn it, Jim, why don't you tell me when things like this are happening?” 

Jim flinched at the harshness of his tone, and when he moved, Bones caught sight of his comm unit, his own extension half-dialed. 

“Hurt to walk,” Jim muttered. “And to look at the screen.” 

Bones signed. When Jim peeked at him through the arm he had thrown over his face to block out the light, he saw an expression that made him pause. Fear, plain as day. The same fear he'd seen in countless patients after he'd scolded them, the fear he'd seen in his own daughter when she scared him half to death doing something dangerous. For some reason, in Jim's face, it finally clicked for him. He wished that he could say, “I'm not mad at you,” to a thousand people, but he'd start with Jim right now.

“It's gonna be okay, kid,” he reassured. “We'll get you fixed up.” He turned to Uhura. “He's in no shape to transport to the med bay, but I'm pretty sure this is a migraine and I can treat him here. I'm phoning Carol, so she'll have what I need ready if you'll pick it up for me.” She did as she was instructed and Bones shielded Kirk’s eyes from the light as she opened and closed the door behind her. 

“Sorry, Bones,” he said, and Bones had to resist the urge to roll his eyes.

“Just worry about gettin’ some rest, okay? You're fine now.” 

He nodded and while Bones wasn't sure whether he actually fell asleep or not, he tried to enjoy the moment of quiet while it lasted, knowing that Jim was safe and they'd all be okay. 


End file.
